tennis | Wednesday, December 28, 2022 9:02 AM

Thursday Tennis Bonus Best Bet: ATP United Cup, Arthur Rinderknech vs Francisco Cerundolo

Jon Reid

Arthur Rinderknech vs Francisco Cerundolo Best Bet: Thursday, December 29th

Well, with the new season kicking off, we’re going to get a bonus writeup out for opening-day action, especially considering the article posted yesterday has been voided, due to a Nick Kyrgios withdrawal.

For our second matchup on the men’s side, we’ll take a look at the France vs Argentina tie and the match between Arthur Rinderknech and Francisco Cerundolo.

In this article:

Arthur Rinderknech vs Francisco Cerundolo Preview
Arthur Rinderknech vs Francisco Cerundolo Best Bet

Arthur Rinderknech vs Francisco Cerundolo Preview

December 29th, 11:30 (UK Time)

This should be the most fun matchup of the tie, as France are overwhelming favourites to top Argentina over the course of the next few days in the Western Australian city of Perth.

Where most of the Argentinian team are what one would call clay-court specialists, Cerundolo is someone who did manage to make progress on hard courts in 2022. The primary problem for the 24-year-old is that much of that success came in his shocking run to the final in Miami – on notoriously slow hard courts. Other than that tournament in March of 2022, his combined record (outdoors as well as indoors) was just 5-12.

His serve and forehand are certainly strengths and allow him to keep things closer than the markets expect on occasion, but when the conditions speed up, he struggles with timing and comfort, and that’s made it tough for him to be able to find actual victories.

Rinderknech, on the other hand, is not only comfortable in quicker conditions, but can match (if not exceed) the power on his serve, as well as his forehand, neutralising the primary hard-court strength of Cerundolo.

The Argentinian may well be able to keep things close for a stretch, but ultimately the cream should rise to the top.

Arthur Rinderknech vs Francisco Cerundolo Best Bet

Cerundolo has certainly improved on hard courts in the last 12 months – and the power in his serve and forehand allow him to keep some matches unexpectedly close – but he still hasn’t broken through and really won many matches against hard courters when the conditions are on the quicker side.

With the Australian courts tending to play on the faster side of things and the summer heat likely ensuring that the pace stays on the lively side of things, I’ll take Rinderknech to emerge from this one at what I see as a relatively cheap price of 1.71.